Speaking on the House of Representatives floor on September 17, 1997, then-Rep. Ron Paul warned of the “massive buildup of a virtual army of armed regulators.”

Paul, the chairman and founder of The Ron Paul Institute, proceeded to comment in his speech that, with the number of armed federal employees approaching 60,000, the Secretary of the Interior was pushing for even the Bureau of Land Management to be armed.

With the continuing rise of SWAT over the following 16 years, the number of armed US government employees continued to grow.

According to the bulletin - Federal Law Enforcement Officers, 2008 of the Bureau of Justice Statistics - by September of 2008 “federal agencies employed approximately 120,000 full-time law enforcement officers who were authorized to make arrests and carry firearms in the United States,” with 255 of them working for BLM.

We saw the United States government’s armed agents in action recently at the Bundy ranch in Nevada. We also saw them back off, at least for now, when confronted by armed protestors. Paul’s concluding sentences of his 1997 speech seem apropos:

"The gun in the hands of law-abiding citizens serves to hold in check arrogant and aggressive government. Guns in the hands of the bureaucrats do the opposite. The founders of this country fully understood this fact."

The 'Paul-tards' (Paulistas, Paulites, Paulbots, Ron-Paulians, Whack-jobs, Nutcases, Freaks, CONSTITUTIONAL PATRIOT ENEMIES OF THE STATE) LIKE ME tried to warn everyone I knew when it was still early enough to stop this crap that is NOW happening.

YES, WE DID...

Choom-ba (wamba) is simply thrashing around in the chains of the prison that he has allowed to enslave him (by his aquiescence) to those who seek to destroy all ownership of personal property (and with it, all self-determination, to the point of death by the State). If he was in the CONUS in '08 and '12, do you think he voted for the Choomster (and the first Wookie)? Well, maybe it was Valerie Jarrett and Bloomberg and Reid and Rahm Emmanuel that he REALLY voted for, but he doesn't know these names, I suppose.

Choombawamba is like Pink Floyd, in several respects. HE wants to be comfortably numb to the truth (to the point of death, I think).

I could be incorrect, however, Ass-Kisser. He MIGHT have been 'sarcastic' in his comments:

I don't know about YOUR tenacity and mores in posting what you have done, I think, 'Dick Butkiss'. You seem to be deflecting the comment, and hence the story (and accompanianing video link) regarding President Paul.

I suppose you might be like Mata Hari, simply 'working the (chat)room' (as in the CIA directives from the White House), in order to garner 'intelligence'.

You, me, we, dont elect shit. You, me, we votes are an exercise in futility. They do not matter, PERIOD. Fixed, they are as in "fixed" according to the powers at hand. The sooner we all understand this the better off we will will all be. Wee can effect change but it will come from the tip of the sword not the tip of a pen or finger that you might vote with.

The Founders also understood that free blacks and slaves should not have guns. They also understood that gun manufacutring in America was practically non-existent at the time and the "rabble" wouldn't get them.

"Gun ownership is particularly high compared to other common items. For example, in 813 itemized male inventories from the 1774 Jones national database, guns are listed in 54% of estates, compared to only 30% of estates listing any cash, 14% listing swords or edged weapons, 25% listing Bibles, 62% listing any book, and 79% listing any clothes."

You're free to be a tool, but don't be a lazy tool. Considering that a longarm was one of the means to put meat on the table and provide defense, you'd have to be an idiot (lazy or otherwise) to envision a Colonial America without a lot of firearms.

I suppose that your revisionist ilk has the colonists either throwing rocks at the hostiles or waiting for the cops to show up and take a report. (FYI constables at the time were few and far between. America's Founding Fathers were more self-reliant and community-reliant than tools like you)

Guns were more complicated then. You needed a couple people just to load a single shot, if you needed it quick. More often than not, your powder was wet, your flint didn't spark enough, or it would misfire.

I think anyone should be allowed to own a gun as long as it only uses vintage 1776 technology.

Rubbish. Utter rubbish. I shoot muzzle loading during the season, and, while it is slower than todays firearms, it is not more complicated. I've little doubt you've never fired one (or any gun?). If you did, and you think it's complicated, then you should not be allowed to play with Legos.

"I think anyone should be allowed to own a gun as long as it only uses vintage 1776 technology."

And if the time comes when you find yourself needing to be defended by a fellow citizen armed with a gun, well, then I'll certainly respect your wishes and allow you to fend for yourself. Tool.

Troll = member for 18 wks 6 days. A few posts up the page we see poster 4 Freedoms...member for 18 wks 3 days.

Try being a bit less obvious next time. Who pays you assholes to post this bullshit, and don't you feel the least bit like a slimy Quisling? I'd say "God help you when the time comes" but I wouldn't mean it.

It's not only guns in the hands of the government, but they have their own twisted versions of the 'law' that they can pull out when needed.

Two big cases in the news - one is the Supreme Court possibly letting police have access to anything on your cell phone if they arrest or even just stop you. Moral - stash your cell phones when you are stopped, or find a way to hide or delete your data.

Two is the Byron Smith trial in Minnesota. A 65 year old guy whose house had been buglarized before retreated to his basement with his gun when two teens break into his house. They come down to the basement and he shoots them. Pretty clear case of defending his home and his life. Only problem is that he had an audio recorder running where he commented on the shootings - and not too kindly about the teens. Jury nailed him for the audio recording more than the shooting, even calling it pre-meditated murder. He was a fool to record it and let the police have it - otherwise how can it be pre-meditated if the teens had to do the breaking in?

Great note Jose! I challenge everyone here to go a simple 5 days without your mobile data center. I would wager 50% of you can not! It is a challenge I admit, especially if you have a family. They always want to know where you are,what you are doing, only to be comfortable if nothing else. Programming runs deep. It made my better half CRAZY. 5 days produced crazy, I was personally amazed.

Are YOU outta your fuckin' mind? Those were BURGLARS he initially retreated from (under NO obligation to do so in HIS home), only using lethal force when they further violated his home by going into the basement. I don't give a shit if they were 16 year old wannabe thugsters. For cryin' out loud....when did we start coddling thieves, and demonizing regular folks simply defending themselves?!

Everything he says in this video is just SPOT ON and EVERYONE KNEW he was CRAZY when he said it, right?!? "What a nut" they thought! The world has been screwed up forever - it just took the internet for people to realize how bad it was. For 35 years this guy was ignored but he just stuck to his beliefs that the Austrian school was right and that freedom and liberty were the only answer to the markets and government. He used to speak to rooms with maybe a few people listening...

...and what's so significant about this video is that when he stands up to Ghouliani here he has NO IDEA there's an entire army of young people (I was 18 at the time), most of us still here today, who were waiting to jump to his defense and start an intellectual revolution that persists here today, EVERYDAY, at ZH!

Eventually we'll win... I always love watching his 2008 speech at the Rally for the Republic as I remember in the back of my head this is a guy who was ignored, and considered crazy, for 35 years!

I'm backing Pauls son Rand. Remember how Rand pressured Holder into replying to his question, "Would you use drones to kill Americans on American soil". We know that drones have been flying over Bundys ranch. Thank god we have a few like Rand Paul who are willing to ask the tough questions.

And you wonder where all that ammo the government keeps buying up has been going. A lot of it ended up in dead cows. I bet some of those BLM boys wish they could have used it on Bundy and his friends.

Makes you wonder doesn't it? The Postal service who owes the taxpayer Billions of dollars, the same postal service who won't deliver your mail if your parked in front of your mail box, well WTF do they want with a shit load of ammo?

It's your call, but I would greatly caution against supporting Rand Paul in the belief he is like his father. In Rand's case.....the apple fell FAR from the tree. Don't let Rand capitalize on his father's lifetime of work. In the end, Rand is saying SOME good things.....but ACTING in the ways of a typical run-of-the-mill neocon politician. I saw through the facade the moment he endorsed Flip Romney...while his dad was STILL officially in the race.

NRA is nothing more than a mealy-mouthed PAC full of political suits peddling influence on Capitol Hill. They have...and will....continue to 'negotiate' your 2nd Amendment rights away, gnashing their 'teeth' in dramatic fashion along the way.....and of course....asking for your money to 'keep up the fight'.

These guys endorsed Harry Reid when his seat was up for election against Sharon Angle (a true 2nd Amendment patriot), FFS! If THAT doesn't tell us all we need to know about where NRA's true allegiances are.........

100% correct Ron Paul. Hey American People, WAKE UP. Thanks to Obama and his left wing Dem buddies our Healthcare is going down the tubes and gov't might show up and have you arrested for not paying a fine for running a stop sign.